


even though our stars are crossed

by goblindaughter



Category: Secret History - Simon R. Green
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Praise Kink, canon-typical bad behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-09-01 19:02:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20262985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goblindaughter/pseuds/goblindaughter
Summary: Shippy fix-it fic ft. one (mostly) human secret agent, one half-demon troublemaker, and repeated imminent apocalypses. Also, kissing.





	1. three things that happened in paris

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [goblindaughter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goblindaughter/pseuds/goblindaughter) in the [iibb2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/iibb2019) collection. 

> **Prompt:**
> 
> Shippy fix-it fic ft. one (mostly) human secret agent, one half-demon troublemaker, and repeated imminent apocalypses. Also, kissing.
> 
> Behold, the field of my id. This is the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written and it was a blast. I just cut the fuck loose and put in everything I like. Praise kink! Tenderness as the highest obscenity! Preserve Your Gays! Cuddling! Massages! I've been trying to write these two forever and now I have done it I cannot be stopped. The chapters are arranged in chronological order.
> 
> WARNINGS: I didn't know what to call these so they're not in the tags, but be advised that Roger starts out doing the honeytrap thing and as a result tells many a lie while sleeping with Harry. Twice. Harry ends up being okay with this. You may not be. Also, canonically they're technically half-brothers or third-brothers or whatever it is when you're the son of a succubus and so technically have three parents, but their relationship is not written to take this into account at all and tbh I think it’s pretty gross and cringy and homophobic that Green made that choice (actually a lot of his choices are like that), so I ignored it for the purposes of this fic. Roger’s still an illegitimate Drood but they’re like third cousins twice removed or something suitably distant. Ye be warned, reader! Carry on at thine own discretion.

The last of the September sun spills through the window of his Montmartre apartment, painting gold stripes across Harry’s back where he lies facedown on the bed. Roger sits straddling him, digging the heels of his hands into Harry’s shoulders.

"Penny for your thoughts."

"Mm, I'm thinking about how close your hands are to my neck."

"Kinky."

Harry lets out a muffled snort. "No, really."

"What, are you objecting?"

"More considering how I wouldn't have let you do this even last week." Harry is still limp and pliant under his hands, and when Roger digs his thumb into a knot Harry rewards him with a pleased groan. No sign he's about to get up and turn this into, hell forbid, a serious discussion. 

"Scared of the big bad cambion?"

"Appropriately wary. Little to the left?" 

Roger shifts, finds another knot. "If you're  _ appropriately wary  _ all the time, that explains why you're one big snarl. I'm astonished your family doesn't all have aneurysms before they turn fifty."

"Clean living—  _ ouch _ , too hard." 

"Sorry." Roger eases up on the pressure. "Better?"

"Mmhm."

It's true, though. Only a week ago, Harry wouldn't have been this vulnerable for him. Wouldn't even have come over to his place, let alone spent the night there.r  


It's working. 

So why does he feel so awful?

###

Last night they fought an elf lord who tried to dance an entire popup nightclub in the warehouse district to death. That part went fine. Harry kept him busy while Roger tore the sound system carrying the glamour to bits—not so hard, when he can summon hellfire and the expensive-looking equipment was mostly leaves and moss slapped together and ordered to behave 'til midnight—and they got everyone out. (Harry does always insist on that. It's sort of cute.) Then Harry armored down and started interrogating the lord in High Elvish— it took Roger's powers a second to catch up and translate, because he hadn't been expecting that— and the elf lord, broken-spined and pinned under a ceiling girder, started to laugh, and laugh, and laugh. 

_ Melanie Blaze’s mongrel cub! Where’s your mummy now, little boy? Did playing fairy bride not suit her in the end? _

Which raised no end of questions, but Roger found himself not giving a fuck about that so much as the look that flashed over Harry's face, so he pulled bits off until the guy shut up, and then it was all over but the cleanup. 

Now it's so late it's technically early the next day, and he wakes from fitful sleep to Harry's side of the bed cold and empty. Outside the dark December sky flirts with dawn and Paris's earliest risers are trickling into the streets. Harry sits curled up in the window seat, holding a glass with too many fingers of scotch in it and staring blankly out over the street. 

He considers going back to sleep and pretending he hasn't seen. 

Then he gets up.

"Shove over," Roger says gently. After a second, Harry complies, and he wedges himself onto the window seat, loops an arm around Harry's shoulders. He's tense, hunched, like someone waiting for a blow. "You miss her." Meaning: your mother.

Harry nods. Roger says nothing else. Either it'll come or it won't. Harry's got to pick. The reason he's so good at being an asshole is that he knows he's doing it, and he knows right now, this, here, is immensely fragile and one wrong move will shatter everything. 

"My mum is..."

_ Is, _ he says. Nobody's seen her in fifteen years. But no body, and Harry says  _ is _ , and there's that look on his face, grief and fierce battered hope, that lances straight through Roger with a pain as fine as the edge of any scalpel. (Almost, he wishes he had someone to feel that way about. Neither of his mothers is exactly up to scratch at the job.) 

"It's difficult to explain," Harry goes on. "The way she loves people is...different than how we do. I don't want to say colder. She wasn't cold. I remember, when I was little she used to sing to me all the time, even when it wasn't bedtime—that is actually something elves do, would you believe bloody Tolkien got  _ that _ right? Our favorite was one about how I'd fit in the microwave. When I was sad she'd sing it and keep adding verses until I started laughing." His mouth twitches into half a fond, sad smile. "It was more like there were parts of her that were attached to me in a way I couldn't see. Invisible cords between us." His hands clench so tight on the glass his knuckles pale two shades. He doesn't seem to realize he's doing it.

And Roger should be looking for the cracks, for the pressure points, and all he does instead is hold Harry, and listen. 

"When she disappeared I was so sure she'd be back." He makes a harsh little sound that might, charitably, be called something like a laugh. "She was my mother, I thought there was nothing that could touch her. And Dad was looking for her, and I thought he couldn't fail, but...well." With a shaking hand, he knocks back a swallow of the scotch. 

For a long time they sit there in silence, while outside Paris finishes waking up. Somewhere in that thick quiet Roger reaches over and takes the scotch away. Harry sighs and drops his head back against Roger's shoulder.

Finally, just as the sun's properly up: "If you're wondering," Harry says, "How I'm human when she's not," and stops.

"I was banking on adoption, actually." Not even a ghost of a smile. Well, it wasn't that funny anyway. 

"People do." There's a whole bitter history in those two words. Roger thinks about what the rest of his family is like, and mentally adds a couple more ticks on his list of people who'll get what's coming to them. "She knew it would be easier for all of us if I wasn't—" Harry almost says something, pauses, stops to consider. "Half-elven. So she took the elf out. There's still a little deep in there, if you squint, but I'm human enough for government work." 

"Do you ever wish she hadn't?"

"I don't know." Harry lets out a shaky breath that might, almost, have a sob in there. "Maybe I could find her, if I had elf magic. Nobody at the Hall seems to  _ care _ . They don't want her back. And I can't do it on my own. I don't even know where to start. All this training, and there's nothing I can do."

"You're not on your own." That comes out much softer than he meant it to. Harry looks at him, surprised, and Roger  _ almost _ backpedals. But no, it's too late, he'll just have to spin it. (And why did he  _ say _ it in the first place?) "I mean," he adds, "I might know a guy. Besides, imagine the aneurysm it'll give your Matriarch." That  _ was _ the wrong thing to say. He sees it in the split-second ripple of upset on Harry's face, and when Harry pulls away, says something about needing more sleep, Roger doesn't try to stop him. 

What, exactly, the hell is he doing?

###

A January 1 AM, frost-dark outside the windows, and Harry lies curled against him, head tucked into the crook of his neck, arm looped over his chest. He looks shorter like this. Smaller. Vulnerable. Someone fast enough could snap his neck before the torc kicked in. Roger's pretty fast, and he knows Harry must have thought of that, and here he still is anyway. Harry sighs in his sleep and nestles closer. Without thinking, Roger slides his fingers through Harry's dark hair, breathes in the clean smell of him. 

This is....

Oh, no. No. Better to remember the first time they fucked—how Harry slammed him into the wall, the fierce kisses more like bites, the bruises they left on each other. Just bodies. None of this—none of what he  _ isn't _ going to let himself go near. 

Roger allows himself to think one dangerous thought anyway. Just halfway, just sideways, almost like a barely-remembered dream, for the plausible deniability: maybe he could ask to keep Harry if they manage to win. Sometimes his mother likes to indulge him. If he framed it just right, Harry would be safe— 

No. He couldn't. At that point Harry would rather be dead, and he can do a lot of things, but he can't condemn Harry to any kind of hell. Especially not the literal one. He'll have to let him go someday. 

But not right now. Right now Hell hasn't won anything, and Harry's asleep in his arms. 


	2. draw your swords (i)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is immediately between books 1&2, if you were wondering.

<strike></strike>

The first sign of trouble is that he finds Harry almost immediately. 

It shouldn't be that easy. The standard half-demon superpower package comes with an internal GPS for people he knows that works perfectly except when Drood torcs stonewall it without even trying.

But as he lies in the shitty hotel room, carefully swilling warm saltwater in his aching mouth and waiting for his tongue to grow back, he thinks,  _ Harry. _

Or, no, to be more honest: he wishes for Harry. He wants, like a sentimental idiot, for Harry to have found him, to have broken open the holding cells, for Harry to hold him and watch the door while he heals, and just as he thinks,  _ is a couple months of good dick really all it takes for you to go soft, Roger? _ it hits. Like a flash of light. Nantes. Harry's in Nantes.

He tells himself the reason he bolts out the door before his new tongue is even half-finished and races for the ferry is appearances. Just appearances. That's all.

###

The  _ second _ sign of trouble is that once he hits Nantes, the tracker points him directly towards a big cloud of smoke rising over the port. Pretty obvious, that. Roger grits his teeth (ow  _ fuck _ ow ow bad move his mouth's not better yet) and floors it. His little rental, first car he grabbed, complains as it leaps forward. 

At least he can only find live people. He has time. They have time.

The gates are broken open already; he screeches to a stop just inside and leaps from the car. Something tugs at him, pushes the fire to the corner of his eye, suggests he turn around and go home.  _ Nothing interesting here, look away.  _ Roger bulls right through. 

He takes everything in all at once: the blackened half-shell of a warehouse collapsing in on itself as the flames roar higher, what must be a battalion of knock-off Cthulu-ites all in edgelord black, the bright white beam that shoots out from behind a shipping container to take out the cultist trying to stab him. 

He tries to tell himself that the wave of relief that almost drowns him when he sees Harry crouched behind a scorched shipping contained, chrome raygun in hand, is purely professional. So is the concern that follows hard on its heels when he sees the way Harry’s favoring his left side. Completely. 

Harry's hurt, can't or won't armor up; they're outnumbered. Time to end this.  _ Now. _

Oh, what the hell, it's already all on fire.

###

"Did you have to burn down the whole thing?"

"No, but it was fun. Hold still." 

They're in Harry's closest safehouse, a tiny third-floor flat in a massive complex. They didn't get to talk on the drive over—once Roger broke the don't-look-here on the warehouse every firetruck in Nantes showed up, and half the police; there was no time to do anything but focus on not getting caught. And Harry was trying so hard to act like he was alright, but Roger knows him, knows his tells (that catch in his breath, that set to his shoulders, the way his fingers shake a little when he pushes up his glasses). He set Harry on the kitchen table when they got in.

He eases Harry's suit jacket off, or what's left of it. Harry sucks in a breath, knuckles paling as he grips the edge of the table. Beneath, his shirt is charred and soaked with blood, stuck to his skin. When Roger peels it away he goes rigid. 

"Easy," says Roger smoothly. The calm's a fake, but he's a good faker. "Where's your medical kit?"

"Cabinet over the sink."

He grabs the kit, pops a grey medical blob out of its canister, and sets it against Harry's ribs. After a second the putty swells, stretches; the bruising vanishes, and the blob crumbles to dust, leaving behind only some grit and brown skin unmarred except for dried blood and smudged ash. 

Harry sighs. Pushes his glasses up his nose, squares his shoulders. If it weren't for the dark circles under his eyes, the faint sheen of sweat on his face, he would almost seem alright.

"I have to admit," Harry says, "You have excellent timing."

"I need to make sure you have a reason to keep me arou—" 

Harry kisses him. Soft, slow, with a burning undercurrent of need. 

But Roger's tongue still isn't entirely healed. One wrong move, a too-enthusiastic deepening of the kiss, and they both taste the bitter sulfur of his blood. He pulls back before Harry can swallow any, and tries not to think too much of the new expression of concern on Harry's face. 

"Roger, what happened to your mouth?"

"Nothing."

"Roger."

"It's fine, I'm fine, aren't I?" Deflecting, he adds, "Why didn't you armor up?"

Harry's throat works. Immediately, Roger feels like an ass for using  _ that _ to change the subject, though being an ass is usually his stock-in-trade. "It's...gone."

For a second Roger thinks he can't have understood right. Drood armor doesn't  _ work _ that way. The point is that it's always right there in the torc. But clearly things do work that way now, or Harry wouldn't have needed his help. Then he thinks that whatever happened, whatever took the torc, he should have been there. He should have been there to—what? Stop it? Harry doesn't even know what happened.

_ To find out what can take a Drood's torc away _ , he tells himself firmly, even as he pulls Harry into his arms. Harry's tense as a plucked string; his fingers dig into Roger's shoulders for a second. Roger can actually feel the effort it takes him to stop. "What happened?"

"I don't know. It just..." A long pause. Roger lets it sit. "Two days ago, I was in the middle of a fight, and my armor...went away. One second there, then it was just—I had to cut and run. There's been no word from the Hall yet."

A Drood without his armor. All alone, in a world that has entire catacombs of bones to pick with his family. 

If Roger had been only a day later— 

_ You weren't. _

He rubs Harry's back, long slow circles, until Harry relaxes against him, just the tiniest bit; lets Roger take most of his weight instead of holding himself painfully rigid. "Come on," he says, "Into the shower with you, you smell like smoke." 

Harry makes it to the equally tiny bathroom under his own power. (Roger makes a note to take Harry someplace  _ nice _ , preferably somewhere with multiple jets and a bed big enough for both of them to stretch out, after this). More or less.

Roger undresses Harry the rest of the way, easing away the remains of the ruined suit and discarding them. (It'll all have to be burned; can't be worn again, and it's not safe to leave something that's been so close to Harry's skin, sucking up his essence, in a trash can somewhere, especially with Harry's torc gone, and  _ when _ did he start focusing on this so much and so sincerely, without remembering why he  _ needs _ Harry in one piece instead of  _ wants _ him that way?) Harry’s covered in dried blood and soot and sweat, and despite the blob's work he lets out a hiss when he steps under the hot water. “Ow. Damn.” He twists his neck to the side stiffly, then turns to look at Roger. “Are you just going to stand there or are you planning to join me?”

“Well, since you ask.” 

It's not really big enough for both of them. He has to press up against the wall to let Harry have most of the water, and even then there's barely a few hairs' width between them. But Harry didn't ask because sharing is convenient; Harry asked because he wants to be this close to him. He's good enough at this now to tell without trying, and that's either a triumph or a danger.

When Harry winces trying to get at his back, Roger holds out a hand. “Give." He takes the washcloth and sets to work. Gentleness has never come naturally to him, but there’s something about the planes and curves of Harry’s body that makes it easier, at least for a little while. Maybe he’s getting too into character. But it works, doesn’t it? Here’s a Drood, soft in his hands. His Harry. Dangerous kind of thought to have. Not dangerous enough for him to stop, though. Besides, nothing wrong with a little danger. 

(Part of him unwinds.)

Finally, the water runs clear, and Roger sets the cloth aside and just works his hands into the knots in Harry's shoulders. Harry sighs. 

"Roger—"

"Oh, don't thank me again, it's bad for my image." He slides a hand down Harry’s side, gratified by the catch in his breath that comes from want this time; presses closer when Harry grabs his shoulders and pulls. 

And then they get up to other things which don't leave a lot of breath for talking. 

Afterwards, clean and mostly dry, they lie practically on top of each other in the safehouse’s tiny twin bed. It’s tucked into the corner, away from the sole window and the door, nothing blocking sightlines. Harry keeps  _ almost _ falling asleep, and then jerking awake, eyes flicking around the room, tensed and ready, hunted-looking. His jaw works a little each time, in that way Roger knows means he’s subvocalizing the summoning Words for the magical armor that won’t come. He’s never seen Harry this frightened before. 

(If he were willing to really look at the heavy feeling coiling in his gut, he’d know it for a burning fury. And underneath that, for fear.)

"Harry," says Roger the third time, "If anything happens to you, it's going to be me _ .  _ Nobody else is allowed to get close."

The corner of Harry's mouth twitches. Just a little, but it's enough. "Only you could make that sound almost sweet."

He presses a kiss to Harry's forehead. "Go back to sleep." It's an act. It's just an act. 

And if he was a better liar he would believe that. 


	3. two rounds, no rematch

Breathing hurts. 

Every inch of him is bruised on the  _ inside _ and some asshole's pulped his bones and breathing oh fuck  _ burns _ , and his skin throbs and he feels like his brain's been scraped raw and bleeding and then left out in the sun to go putrid. The entire world has turned to incomprehensible white noise. 

There's something. 

Someone. 

Someone important. 

_ Harry, _ he thinks, and with the name comes a groundswell of panic. He almost—he can't remember who or why or how but he knows he almost lost Harry and the thought takes his throat in its fist and squeezes. 

Someone is holding him close. Like something precious. Rocking him, not purposefully, but more like they’re moving and so he is too. There's a voice, just on the edge of hearing. Shaky, soft. Desperate.

"Please Roger please Roger please Roger please—"

Roger. Right. Yes. That's him. And he knows this voice, the panic inside him quiets at it, and then everything clicks painfully, thankfully, back into place. The battle; the Soul Gun, sweeping everyone but them so far and long away it might as well be a killing weapon. That first shield taking all the strength in him, hollowing him out. The awful knowledge that another blow was coming and he had nothing left.

He pries one eye open, then the other, by main force of will and not because they actually work. Sees Harry's face above him, drawn, dark eyes wet. 

"You're alright," he croaks. Fuck him  _ running _ , but moving his throat is an exercise in ten kinds of words for  _ scrape _ . 

"Of course I'm  _ alright _ , you jumped in front of me, you  _ idiot _ ." Harry’s voice cracks. "Why did you do that?" 

Because—

Because he didn't have enough power left in him to do anything else. Because whatever the blast did to him, that pure megaton magic sweep of  _ away _ , would have been better than losing Harry. Because he doesn't want a world without Harry in it. Because he's an idiot, and weak enough to lose control of himself, and somehow managed to use that to keep both of them from getting washed away by that tide of light.

Because, against all reason, against everything he knows, he loves Harry. 

He should be disgusted with himself. He should claw this feeling out until there's not even the empty space left, exorcise it, burn it to the ground. 

He's not. He can't. 

A whole host of sharp, deflecting answers rise in his throat.  _ Let it take, and lose my in? Come on. _ Or,  _ I put too much work into you, who else should I seduce, your cousin?  _ None of them come out. 

“Had to," he whispers instead, and leans into Harry's touch.

He's so, so fucked, and he doesn't care. 


	4. draw your swords (ii)

He's not dead. 

His ears ring so loudly he can't hear anything else and he thinks he hit his head and spots swim across his vision, and so it takes a moment for that to fully sink in. Someone's on top of him, so heavy for a second he thinks it's a corpse, and a whiteout flash of terror hits:  _ Harry no no please no— _

Then suddenly light floods back in, pale and grey, and Harry rolls off him. The control room's been reduced to rubble. Smoke fills the air, thick and acrid. Everything is horribly quiet. Harry pulls him to his feet. He's breathing hard, sweat standing out on his forehead, but he's alright, he's  _ alright _ , and that's worth everything. 

"You have to get out of here—" They'll open the protections again, he knows, just long enough for the Droods to come charging in so the army can cut them down. If he's fast enough he can get Harry out. That's the important thing now. The only thing he might manage to do right.  _ You idiot, _ he thinks bitterly.  _ Can't pick a side until it's too late, can't keep him safe. You should have told him to go to Hell when you had the chance, then maybe he wouldn't have come. _

(But he would have anyway. That's Harry.)

" _ We _ are getting out of here," Harry says fiercely. Roger opens his mouth to argue. 

And the Glass appears in the air, showing Drood Hall on the other side of it, and Harry grabs Roger's arm and throws them both through. 

###

After that things were sort of a blur. 

Harry stood between him and the whole damn clan—he remembers that. There was a protracted skirmish about whether he was going to end up in a holding cell and Molly fucking Metcalf, of all people, put in a word for him, which he's still not sure he didn't hallucinate. It mostly hinged on the fact there's a whole army of Satanists still out there in a time warp trying to take over the world and there's no time to argue about this, but still. 

Then it turned out he had a concussion.  _ That's _ new. He's not liking this human thing. An annoyed-looking woman— he didn't blame her— in a white coat went over him with a long ivory wand, which made his eyeballs feel slightly fizzy, and pronounced him "medically fit, but, and full offense meant here, why are you having me put him back together instead of pulling his squishy bits out and turning him into a guard scarecrow?"

Harry's glare would have withered a lesser woman. 

Then Molly did—  _ something _ —he still doesn't know what, doesn't think he would have known even when he had the ability to see her magic as she worked him— and peeled the geas away, layer by layer, as far as she could, and he told them everything. 

Probably won't be enough. The really important stuff is locked behind the last layer, shoved down so deep he can't even think about it when he's in a room with the wrong people. He can barely remember he  _ does _ know it. 

Finally, everybody agreed—or compromised, anyway—that as long as he didn't so much as twitch funny, they could just shut him in Harry's room and figure out a more permanent solution later. Assuming they're all alive later.

The room is alien and sterile, still not properly anyone's, but the door shuts, at least. He drops down onto the bed, too tired and achy to care about looking like he isn't either of those things. Harry sits next to him, arm's length away.

He doesn't know what to do with any of this. Not the fact he's still alive. Not the look Harry's giving him, wonder and disbelief and tenderness he's done absolutely everything he could to drive away the past eight months.

"Roger, are you—" 

"Fine," he says. More or less. And, because he still hasn't figured out how exactly to apologize and also because it's true, "I don't deserve you."

Harry lifts a hand to his cheek, touch featherlight and gentle. "It's not about deserving."

And Harry believes it. He really does. Roger knows all his tells and he can't find a single one.

This isn't for him. He's nothing special, for Harry to give him this—can't be a demon, useless as a human, a traitor twice over. He lied to Harry about so much for so long; he held that clicker in his hand, and he thought about using it, he  _ planned _ to use it. To kill him. The fact he didn't, in the end, changes none of that. 

Roger lets out a shaky breath. "It's— look. You haven't even shouted at me a little. Or thrown one tiny fireball."

"I can't throw fireballs."

"You know what I mean. Aren't you angry at  _ all _ ? I fucked you over hard, Harry."

"You didn't want to."

"It doesn't matter if I wanted to," Roger says bitterly. "I did it. I even liked it, mostly."

"I know," Harry says, "I don't give a damn. I'm just glad you're home." His voice cracks on the word.  _ Home _ , he says, like it means something, and he kisses him, slow and soft, so sweet it hurts; rests his forehead against Roger's, eyes shut, when he breaks the kiss at last. Roger thinks he might break apart from how  _ careful _ Harry is being with him.

He wishes they could just stay like this. That he could just have Harry right here, in his arms, safe from the mess he stirred up—but something has to be done.

"Please don't die out there." Roger's voice comes out hoarse and quiet. It doesn't sound like his at all. 

"I won't. I promise."

And he's gone.


	5. reunions, major and minor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melanie Blaze was a WASTED OPPORTUNITY and she belongs to me now I don't make the rules.

Turns out waiting for the action to be over is bloody boring _ . _ At least when his mother was taking him apart at the seams there was something to  _ do. _ (The something was scream, but still.) Although if he's being honest with himself, what he hates isn't the boredom. He's fairly experienced at handling that. It's the fact Harry's out there, and he's in here, and there's nothing he can do but hope. And hoping does fuck-all when he's got no more magic than a kumquat. 

He tries to read, and can't. There's definitely no way he can fall asleep, although his temples ache and so do the insides of his bones and what he thinks might be his liver. Lying still makes him itch. So he ends up pacing, back and forth, back and forth, until he knows the room is forty paces one way and twenty the other and has memorized every twist in the carpet's pattern. 

And then the world  _ tilts,  _ nearly throwing him into the dresser. Everything goes wobbly and soft-edged and less real, which would be more surprising if it hadn't first happened six hours ago when they went  _ into _ the pocket dimension. Roger allows himself to relax incrementally. He's pretty sure Philip fucking MacAlpine, the little prick, wouldn't be able to figure out that top-secret dimensional engine (that Harry...was not supposed to tell him about, and did anyway) if an instruction manual bit his face off. The fact that it's gone off again means the Droods must have won.

Unless it went off by itself and they're all even more royally fucked than they were when they came here.

Sometimes he just  _ loves  _ being a cynic. 

_ He'll be fine. He has to be fine.  _

Nobody actually  _ told _ him not to leave the room, although it was definitely implied and if he provides the slightest reason for suspicion everyone else is going to overrule Harry and chuck him in a holding cell. Or shoot him. But he can’t just sit here and wait. Roger considers what he knows about Harry, and then reaches behind the headboard. His fingers find something smooth and rounded and metal. A little bit of tugging earns him a snub-nosed revolver with a clear barrel full of what looks like electric-blue liquid. Nice. 

He listens at the door. Nothing. That's good. Most of the Droods are in the Redoubt, the high-tech higher-magic panic room, or on duty. If something happened, there'd be angry life-size Oscar statues running around punching it. 

Well, as long as whatever _ something _ might be hasn't already slaughtered them all.

_ Shut up. _

He steps outside. The hall's empty, silent as a rave on Monday morning. Silently, he makes his way through the halls, spine crawling fit to grow its own legs, wondering what the hell exactly he thinks he's going to be able to help with.

Roger comes to a crossroads, and stops dead. There's something— no, not exactly. There's a rent of  _ nothing _ in the air at the end of the hallway, in front of one of those stupid marble statues. Not light, not shadow; gray would be the word except gray is exactly wrong, no-color might be closer except this thing has never had a relationship to color. It twists and writhes and wriggles away from his gaze. Yesterday he'd have been able to use his Sight to pin it down and figure out what the fuck it is. Today, all he can do is watch as it stretches, flowing wider, and bulges out. Something hand-shaped pushes through it with an  _ absence _ of noise that goes so far past silence it comes out the other side, and he's still alone with this thing. Roger rocks a step back and considers running.

The hand blurs into real and grips the edge of the nothing, and tears. 

An elf steps out.

She has Harry's sharp black eyes, he notices first, Harry's generous mouth. Skin so smooth she almost looks like a doll, inky hair, silver glinting in the points of her ears and in her lip. 

A wand at her side. As long as her forearm, twisting veins of sick red around something the color of old bone, which might actually  _ be  _ old bone. It sings. Even without his Sight, he can hear it, eager and hungry and malicious. At her other hip hangs a silver sickle.

He's never seen her before, but he knows who she is well enough. Everybody who's anybody has heard of her. Especially everybody who spends enough time with Harry. 

Melanie Blaze. 

Or someone who looks like her, anyway. 

But—well, who else but the genuine article would just have managed that little stunt? Molly fucking Metcalf aside, people can't just  _ pop in _ to the Hall; the defenses shred anyone without the right protocols, or an escort, before they get within a psychic mile. Someone who married in, though—Harry's father would have given her all kinds of back doors without asking first. He seemed like the type. 

She looks around, hand hovering near the butt of her wand ( _ fastest wand in the West, _ Roger thinks with a too-sharp edge of something only pretending to be humor, and he realizes he's actually panicking; he does  _ not _ like the feeling and he can't turn it off, or the sudden constricting pressure in his chest). A hunter's look. Then her eyes land on him. 

"Well," she says. And again, " _ Well. _ " She glides forward, with a kind of liquid sinuous grace usually only seen in snakes and the hungrier kind of big cat. He stays very still. "That was much easier than it had any right to be. What  _ have _ you all been doing without me?"

"This time? Hopping dimensions." Roger tries to put his usual distant ease into the words. He's not sure he quite gets it.

"I wasn't expecting that, but I suppose it does for an explanation." She tilts her head. "I wasn't expecting  _ you _ , either. Atilia's boy, come home at last. I knew your mother."

"She's not my mother anymore."

"No, she isn't, is she?" Her eyes glint. Eyes so dark you could fall into them and keep falling, until you forget that there was ever anything else.

If she draws that wand, there's nothing he can do, pop-gun or no. Hell, if she punches him, there's nothing he can do. He doesn't really know how to fight without his powers; unlike Harry,  _ he  _ never had anyone to force him to train like a baseline human. 

_ Helpless _ . It sticks in his throat like a bone. 

The edge of her mouth quirks up. "Don't be afraid of me, Morningstar. I always behave when I'm at the Hall, I made a promise. Just tell me: where is my  _ son _ ?"

"He—"

The sound of running behind them, a gait he knows, and her gaze snaps sideways. The mask of amusement falls from her face, and it is  _ almost  _ human, the way she looks over Roger's shoulder, the mix of love and surprise and longing fulfilled and just a hint of fear. Roger turns. Harry stands there, bruised but whole, eyes wide. 

"Mum?" says Harry. His voice is the voice of a little boy lost in the woods. 

" _ Harry _ ." 

And then she's pushing past him, and she sweeps Harry into her arms. Harry stands there, stiff and shell-shocked, a moment. Then he collapses against her. She holds him tight, his face buried in the crook of her neck, his fingers digging white-knuckled into her shoulders, her cheek resting against his hair, her hand on the back of his skull clutching him closer. Harry shakes. Roger hears a tiny, broken noise that might be a sob, and Melanie murmurs something to him, low and liquid syllables.

They form a tight, unbreakable circuit. Mother and son. 

Roger is suddenly, horribly, acidly jealous, choking with it.  _ Stop being such an asshole,  _ he tells himself,  _ this isn’t about you,  _ but he can't help the feeling of being outside, other, left in the cold.  _ There, _ sneers a voice in the back of his mind, a mind that sounds a little like his mother's and a lot like his own,  _ He doesn't need you any more.  _

And then Harry pulls away, and looks at him with teary, wondering eyes, and comes over to take his hand. The little voice shuts up. 

"Roger, this is my mother. You've, um. You've heard of her. Mum, this is Roger, my—Roger." 

"Oh," Melanie says. "Yes, I see now." She looks him up and down, her eyes raking him so hard he feels like she's peeling his skin off. Then suddenly she smiles at him—with warmth so genuine Roger almost thinks she must be pretending, for some reason, except that there's nothing he can have that she wants, is there?—and leans in to kiss him on both cheeks too quickly for him to pull away. He tenses, but the most damage she does is two faint cold spots that fade as soon as she steps back. "Well, Roger Morningstar. Welcome to the family."

He has time to be so horrendously grateful it would be almost embarrassing, except hard on the heels of that thought comes:  _ Melanie goddamned Blaze is standing right here in front us and she didn't kill me, what is the world coming to _ , and then the cavalry finally catches up and ruins the moment. Harry's insufferable cousin, Molly, and Harry's deeply scary uncle Jack, the mad scientist's mad scientist. 

Melanie spins. The expression on her face changes, subtly. It's still smile-shaped, but it's not what Roger would call friendly. He's suddenly very glad that Harry hasn't gotten around to explaining the circumstances. And he remembers how suspicious the circumstances she first went missing under were, and he remembers how the Droods didn't look for her, and he thinks:  _ better watch your backs.  _

"Hello, all," she purrs. "It's  _ so _ good to be back."


	6. a red-rose chain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, the title has nothing to do with the October Daye book, and everything to do with the original Billy Shakes poem giving me Big Bondage Vibes(TM). IE: yes this is the praise kink chapter. There are complicated feelings as well as porn ahead. Complicated feelings resolved by discussion and with snuggling, never fear.

So they're finally back in Paris again—Le Marais, of all places, so trendy it makes his teeth hurt, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't like the new apartment, the high ceilings and all the light and the stuffed bookshelves. And Harry. His Harry. 

(He's never gotten a second chance like this before; Roger wakes up some mornings sure he's imagined the whole thing and any minute now his mother will eel her way into his thoughts and start giving orders again.)

It's not exactly quiet out here. Paris attracts an truly migraine-inducing amount of necromancers with delusions of grandeur (they could at least try Prague), and that's not even mentioning everything that happens  _ around _ the city. But they have plenty of time to themselves, too. 

Like tonight. Dinner and drinks at one of the finest little holes in the wall on this side of the river, and a show after, and now...

Now he kneels in front of Harry, who's seated on the bed, wrists bound together behind him. This is new. He's a  _ little _ nervous, just because of that. If they played this kind of game before, it was usually Roger on top. He's taller; he used to be stronger, too. This is new.

He was only able to ask for it in fits and starts, when they were both about to drop off to sleep and all the lights were out. Not being able to see in the dark has been a damn sharp learning curve, but occasionally it has its benefits. He was able to pretend he wasn’t incredibly humiliated by what he was asking Harry to do. By how much he wants what he asked for. 

Reflexively, he tests the bonds, comes up short when they hold against his only-human muscles. 

"We can stop," Harry says. 

"No." A pause; Harry nods. 

Roger leans forward, considers teasing, and then realizes he doesn't have the patience right now and takes Harry in his mouth. The sharp intake of breath he's rewarded with goes straight to his cock. 

He’s used to doing this with Harry pressed up against a wall or into the bed, holding Harry’s legs apart, digging his fingers in hard enough to leave marks. Not helpless and bound. Not with Harry stroking his hair, gently, gently, murmuring praise.  _ That's perfect, just like that, Roger, Roger _ , and it's...fuck, he should have asked for this sooner. Every  _ you're darling,  _ every  _ you're so so good at this, oh, sweetheart _ pushes him closer, higher, until he's so wound and needy he hums with it and he both wants his arms free and doesn't at all. He doesn't know what he needs more, to make Harry come or to come himself, and there's a hot little rush of pleasure when he realizes he doesn't need to pick. Harry will. Harry's got him. 

As if reading his mind, Harry tugs at his hair, pulls his head away and grabs his arm and tugs “Up, come on,” Harry says, and with his arms bound he’s so unbalanced he falls right into Harry’s lap when he’s pulled. Harry kisses him, open-mouthed and hungry; tips him back and sinks his teeth into his shoulder as he reaches between them to stroke both of their cocks together.

Roger makes a sound somewhere between a whimper and Harry's name.

“Look at you,” Harry says, voice rough. “So beautiful. All mine.”

And it’s  _ that _ that pushes him over the edge, sudden and almost too much, leaving him breathless and limp. Harry follows a second later, and Roger thinks blearily about the line of his neck, how his mouth opens when he moans, how fucking gorgeous it is. 

Harry unties him, kisses his wrists even though the cord wasn’t tight enough to leave marks, and then, with sudden alarm, says, "What's wrong?"

"What?" And Roger realizes his cheeks are wet with tears. 

Which is ridiculous, because he doesn't cry, he never  _ cries _ , he learned how not to when he was six, for fuck's sake, and the tears keep coming anyway. "I'm fine," Roger says, around the lump that's suddenly in his throat, "I'm fine, it's just—that was—"

"Did I hurt you?"

"_No_. I just didn't expect you _saying_ _nice things_ would be that intense. Next I'll have a nervous breakdown over you buying me fucking flowers—" Not they go in for that, that’s not his point. He scrubs at his face. Worse than starting in the first place, he can't stop. It used to be easy. His tears burned, back before, and using up the juice to heal himself was more trouble than crying was worth, especially because everyone he knew would pounce on the slightest sign of weakness, and now he...can't. It's bloody infuriating, is what it is. His throat tightens.

“Hey,” Harry says gently, “Hey,” and he gathers him close, wraps his arms around him.

Roger almost resists. If he admits he needs this he admits he was hurt in the first place. But. He does need it. Besides, he made a promise. He told Harry he would let him in, or try, but he hates it. He’d feel less vulnerable with a rib spreader in his chest. And he  _ wants _ it, with a pathetic kind of desperation that fills him with the urge to say something cruel enough to make Harry run. The way he always has before. 

Roger makes himself breathe. Makes himself rest his forehead against Harry’s shoulder, and let himself be safe, and held. 

“Sorry,” he says after a second, “Went and ruined the mood there, didn’t I?”

"Oh, Christ, Roger," says Harry, something raw and strained in his voice, "Don’t apologize.”

“It’s a new skill, let me show off.” That’s meant to lighten the mood, but it comes out strained and on the edge of what Roger doesn’t want to be a sob.

Harry’s thumb makes slow, comforting circles on the nape of his neck. He doesn’t ask anything else of Roger, just holds him, skin to skin, and slowly, the lump in Roger's throat eases, and he feels his breathing even out. 

“If anybody should be apologizing," Harry starts to say.

"I told you, you didn't hurt me. It's not your fault." He shifts, pulling back a little so he can cup the back of Harry's head and draw him in for a kiss. "Besides, it was good, before I lost my shit on you."

"I wouldn't call it that."

" _ I _ would." He feels steadier now. Better. Still a little off-kilter, still humiliated by the terrible reality of having feelings that might in any way put him at a disadvantage, but...it's different, with Harry here. Roger picks his next words carefully, not so much because he's afraid of saying the wrong thing but because he isn't used to this conversation. "If we keep talking about it, I'm going to have to keep thinking about it, and I'd rather not. Distract me?"

Harry eyes him a moment, considering him carefully, weighing things up in that way of his, and then concedes, "We could watch a movie." Pauses, looks down at their stomachs, both still sticky. Adds, "After we clean up."

And they do. Somewhere in act three, Roger falls asleep on Harry's shoulder, and he thinks, fuzzy and somewhat disbelieving,  _ We really get this, we really get to do this.  
_


End file.
